


Bond

by athena_crikey



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Baseball, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: A boy needs more than instruction on customs and kingship. He needs friends who know and love him for what he is – and he will need it more than ever in a foreign world.





	Bond

For a near-deity who claims omnipotence, Shin-Ou can be frustratingly vague. 

Although it is the original king who sends Conrad on his voyage to the other world with the essential task of ensuring Julia’s soul will be reborn, he provides no information on when exactly the heir to Shin-Makoku’s throne will return to the kingdom. 

For the first few years Conrad waits patiently. He is a soldier first and foremost, used to long waits for orders. Besides, a child king would mean the return of a regent, and the last regent nearly tore apart the country with his thirst for power. Shin-Makoku cannot endure those kinds of losses again, not so soon. Not with so many hearts still bleeding. 

But as a decade passes, Conrad begins to grow impatient. His mother is more and more absent, Gwendal stepping in with a steady hand from behind the scenes. Wolfram, too young to have fought in the war and too proud to learn its lessons, grows steadily apart from his half-human brother. There are border skirmishes with the humans, rare at first and then slowly increasing as Cheri remains indecisive. 

Without a proper ruler, the country is hamstrung. The 10 Nobles are divided in their opinions, devolving into petty squabbles over land and legalities, and in any case they cannot rule in place of a monarch. 

The country needs a king. But Shin-Ou continues to defer: _Not yet. Not yet._

  
***

It’s a sunny day in early autumn when Conrad rides up to Shin-Ou’s shrine. The leaves are starting to change, the air full of the scent of warm earth and ripe fruit.

He’s greeted at the entrance by one of the temple maidens and asked his purpose. Visits to the shrine’s priestess are few and far between, and carefully monitored for any attempted influence on her autonomy. But Conrad is known to the maidens, and after leading his horse to the stable he’s permitted entrance. 

Ulrike looks the same as always – certainly the same as she did 13 years ago, when he was sent to Earth. She is sitting by the fountain in the central square, the red of her skirt bright as blood in the sunny afternoon. She smiles at the sight of him. “Sir Weller.”

“Priestess Ulrike. Do you know why I am here?” He finds it better to ask first – she so often does. 

“You are worried about the new Maou,” she replies softly, still with the same smile. She has the gentleness of a butterfly, a soft, delicate kind of beauty – both of face and character. “Your concern does you credit, Sir Weller.”

“I know it is too soon, but there must be some word. Some notion of when he will come to us.” He stands awkwardly, aware that he is towering over her tiny frame. And yet, she is the one with the power here. 

“I cannot say when he will come. When Shin-Ou is willing, when all is ready. That is the only answer I have.”

“There must be something you can tell me. Of his life, his needs. How can we be ready for a king we do not know?” It is not his task to be ready, of course. That falls to Gunter, who will teach Yuuri of their ways, and to Gwendal who will instruct him in the arts of diplomacy and monarchy. 

But a boy needs more than instruction on customs and kingship. He needs friends who know and love him for what he is – and he will need it more than ever in a foreign world. 

Ulrike tilts her head to the side, bird-like, considering. Finally, she says: “Baseball.”

“Baseball?” asks Conrad, confused. She nods firmly. 

“Baseball.” It appears to be the only hint she will give. 

“Thank you, Priestess,” he replies, after a moment’s pause. And then, when nothing more seems forthcoming, “Please excuse me.”

He has some thinking to do.

  
***

Conrad still remembers his visit to the other world clearly. The smell of diesel fumes and hot tar, the massive skyscrapers stretching upwards, the sheer number of people everywhere. His host had taken him to a game held in an immense walled-in playing field, like the battle arena of Big Shimalon. But the men there hadn’t battled for their lives – they played simply for pride and the enjoyment of their audience. That had been baseball.

Shibuya had explained to him the rules at the time. Now, as he sits in his room at Blood Pledge Castle with a screed of parchment before him and a new quill in his hand, he struggles to remember the specifics. Two teams. 9 rounds of play, divided in half. Batters and fielders. He draws a circle, then crosses it out and sketches a diamond. This is followed by a ball, stitched together in a special, snake-like pattern. A bat follows it, then a glove. 

He leans back and looks down at his work. He is no great artist, and his notes are crooked and confused. But, he thinks, it’s the start of something.

  
***

Yozak has always been handier than him. For all that his father was a wandering swordsman, they were of near-noble status and Conrad was raised wanting for nothing. Yozak scraped out a living for himself with the bitter taste of poverty in his mouth, and as they grew together Conrad perfected swordsmanship and court manners while Yozak perfected brawling and workmanship.

“What’s this?” Yozak takes the parchment from Conrad and stares at it, then turns it on its side, squinting. “A fish?”

“It’s a kind of glove,” explains Conrad, with the patience that has come to him in the years since Julia’s death. “Made out of leather. For catching balls.”

Yozak gives him a skeptical look. “That’s what your hands are for, Captain.” 

It’s true. In Shin-Makoku children play many games with balls of all sizes, and are expected to field them with bare hands.

“The ball is small and hard, and thrown at great speed and across distances. It requires a glove to handle. With webbing between the thumb and fingers, and thick like saddle-leather.”

“Won’t be very flexible,” points out Yozak, scratching his head thoughtfully. 

“It doesn’t need to be. We’ll also need balls. And bats.” He taps the paper illustration. 

“What’s this all for, Captain?”

“The future.”

  
***

The first couple of attempts come off badly, but by the third Yozak has produced something useable. Conrad and he try it out in the castle courtyard, the ball small and hard and stuffed with jute twined around cork and covered by thin leather stitched together with broad seams. The gloves are stiff, as Yozak had threatened, but they do serve to protect the hand.

It turns out that neither Conrad nor Yozak are much of a hand at tossing a ball; although both have strong hand-eye coordination, it’s not a pastime they’ve ever practiced. Neither does a good job of estimating the angle or strength of the throw, and their catches are sloppy compared to the graceful movements of the team Conrad saw in Boston. 

But it’s something. 

Wolfram passes by and sees them at it. He turns up his nose with a small noise of disgust and keeps walking. 

The new Maou, Conrad finds himself thinking, will face many challenges. 

Having fun shouldn’t be one of them.

  
***

Yozak doesn’t have much interest in learning a sport from another world. Conrad starts playing with nearby human children instead; they’re much more enthusiastic. They don’t have enough players or equipment for a full game but he keeps playing catch, improving both his throwing and pitching skills. The children run about the improvised diamond, laughing and shouting – with war still very much an imminent possibility, it’s nice to hear children laugh again.

The idea of peace is one that has been in the back of his mind for a long time, but until now it has been too much to hope that a new king might end the threat of war hanging over them all. Too much pressure to put on young king new to this world. 

But for the sake of these children and their new game, he finds himself hoping the new Maou will try. 

Until his arrival, Conrad will keep himself busy the only way he knows how – learning how best to support his new king. 

He tosses the ball back to the boy acting as pitcher, and crouches down to wait. 

**EPILOGUE**

“You have baseball here?” Yuuri’s dark eyes are wide and surprised, staring at the mitt in Conrad’s hand.

He’s still young, but not so young as he could have been. Not too young to assume the throne. He will come of age in less than a year, and will have to make the same choice that falls to all half-Mazoku. But that’s a ways off yet. 

“I’m a fan of the Boston Red Sox,” replies Conrad easily. He’s had a long time to prepare for this moment. 

“You have a place called Boston here, too?” Yuuri’s expression is incredulous. 

“No, Your Majesty. Boston is in the United States of America, in a state called Massachusetts. I travelled there a long time ago, and saw a game of baseball.” _With your father_ , he omits to say. 

“That’s where I was born.”

Conrad smiles. And, a moment later, Yuuri nearly loses his balance.

“You! You were the good-looking swordsman who helped my mother to the hospital!”

“I had no idea she would take my talk of Yuuri seriously,” he answers. 

“Then 15 years of _Shibuya Yuuri Harajuku Furi_ is half your fault!” Yuuri doesn’t seem upset though. More pleased, if anything. Conrad doesn’t understand his words, but he understands it holds a lot of meaning for Yuuri. 

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“Call me Yuuri. You’re my _nazukeoya_ , after all.” He picks up the mitt from Conrad and examines it. “This is really well-made! Not quite like the ones at home, though.”

Conrad waves at the window overlooking the large square below, empty now at the end of the day. “Would you like to try it out, Yuuri?”

Yuuri beams at him. Suddenly all the years of waiting, hoping, preparing, finally seem worth it.

They go out together, with a shared bond between them. 

END


End file.
